Altogether, it is an exceedingly unsuitable
place for a pastoral and rural poet to live or die in,--even more
unsatisfactory than Shakspeare's house, which has a certain homely
picturesqueness that contrasts favorably with the suburban sordidness
of the abode before us. The narrow lane, the paving-stones, and the
contiguity of wretched hovels are depressing to remember; and the
steam of them (such is our human weakness) might almost make the
poet's memory less fragrant.
As already observed, it was an intolerably hot day. After leaving the
house, we found our way into the principal street of the town, which,
it may be fair to say, is of very different aspect from the wretched
outskirt above described. Entering a hotel, (in which, as a Dumfries
guide-book assured us, Prince Charles Edward had once spent a night,)
we rested and refreshed ourselves, and then set forth in quest of the
mausoleum of Burns.
Coming to St. Michael's Church, we saw a man digging a grave; and,
scrambling out of the hole, he let us into the churchyard, which was
crowded full of monuments. Their general shape and construction are
peculiar to Scotland, being a perpendicular tablet of marble or other
stone, within a frame-work of the same material, somewhat resembling
the frame of a looking-glass; and, all over the churchyard, these
sepulchral memorials rise to the height of ten, fifteen, or twenty
feet, forming quite an imposing collection of monuments, but inscribed
with names of small general significance.
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